What Do I Do?

I don’t talk much here about my professional life so I decided to create a page to go into some detail about my pursuits and educational background.

I graduated from Portland State University, highest honors, with a really funny sounding degree called Bachelor of Arts in Arts and Letters With Teaching Field In Music.

What that title really means is that I pounded humanities classes in college. The result of a humanities fruit salad is: I speak a fair amount of German and almost majored in it, I can read and understand quite a bit of French but don’t ask me to utter a word of it, and I can hold my own in Spanish. Though the degree name sort of hints at it, I really did specialize in music classes, piles of them. Participation in college music ensembles took me to wonderful and interesting places like Estonia, Finland, England and the former Soviet Union.

Because of the focus of my blog, I should probably include that though I don’t remember anything about high school biology class, I did in fact take three terms of undergraduate geology, which I loved, and to this day maintain a keen interest in rocks. I also completed one term of astronomy because my advisor told me it was the easiest science class. That is the extent of my formal science training.

I went on to do some graduate work in music but regrettably never completed a masters degree. It would be fair for me to also claim the titles of composer, arranger and songwriter alongside musician. I did finally obtain a teaching certificate which ushered in my career as a public school music educator. I have been an elementary school music specialist for 15 years now.

Throughout my adulthood, to put myself through college and at times to make a living, I played a LOT of music – rock, pop, blues, country, jazz. My feet have stood on many stages, and I’ve appeared in many bands as a piano/keyboard player and vocalist. I’ve also done a fair amount of solo work, culminating in the release of a CD under the stage name Julia Korena in 2005. Along with rock, pop, country, blues and jazz, I have a solid foundation in classical and these days, that’s pretty much mostly what I listen to. Beethoven and Rachmaninoff are my heroes.

As I’ve matured, I have backed off the performing. There’s a reason you don’t see a whole lot of folks my age out there on stages playing four or five sets a night. It’s cliche to say it’s a rough life, but it’s also true.

Throughout my years as a professional educator and musician, I have also managed somehow to raise two beautiful children who are now young adults and just setting out on their own journeys.

I am probably the least likely person to end up writing a pro-science blog that focuses on GMOs. Just goes to show yet again how reality is often stranger than fiction.